Are investment banking hours exaggerated?
Investment banking is not a normal 9-to-5 job — investment bankers can work anywhere from 60 to over 100 hours per week, depending on the company and the deals at hand.
Investment bankers work notoriously long hours, with the typical work week filling in 60-80 hours per week, and the occasional high-intensity work week that can push a banker to 100+ hours.
If you work in an investment banking division (IBD), or pretty much any other sector of financial services, you are likely spend a healthy part of your day dealing with career-related stress. The working hours, the responsibilities, the external pressures to deliver consistent compelling results – they all add up.
Careers in banking involve a variety of work schedules. Many careers include a standard Monday through Friday schedule, and some banks may require working short hours on Saturdays. While many of these careers operate on a 9-to-5 or similar schedule, some high-powered banking jobs may require working longer hours.
Investment Banking Deliverables at Different Levels
As in many professions, the job starts out relatively mundane and repetitive. As you advance up the hierarchy, the work becomes more interesting and relationship-oriented, as opposed to merely churning out endless slide decks and Excel models.
Investment Banking VP Hours
VPs have marginally better lives than Associates and significantly better lives than Analysts, but they still work a lot. The average is probably 55-70 hours per week, which translates into 12-hour days in the office on weekdays, followed by a bit of extra work from home.
While working in Investment Banking, the average bedtime on weekdays for me was 1:29 AM, with an average sleep duration of 5 hours and 56 minutes. On weekends, the average bedtime was 12:02 AM, with an average sleep duration of 8 hours and 29 minutes. However, behind these figures are large fluctuations day by day.
Age Range: It's nearly impossible to reach this level before your early 30's, so we'll say 35-50 for the range. Few MDs continue working until the official retirement age (65-70); it's a stressful, high-pressure job, and past a certain net worth, it's just not worth it.
1. Investment Banker. Roles in investing banking are highly sought after. For investment bankers, it's often a higher competition to land a role in one of the largest firms.
Bankers, generally speaking, are not sleeping well. Across all respondents to our survey, people working in finance got an average of 6.72 hours of sleep a night.
Do you have to be smart to be an investment banker?
Essential Qualities for an Investment Banker
Aside from a high tolerance for stress, you also need to have an aptitude for math and a keen interest in the financial markets.
You're probably losing 1-2 hours of pure free time a day and you'll have to do a little bit of work on the weekend. At 60 hours per week, you can still celebrate a glorious work-free Friday night. You can get off around 5-6 pm and not touch your laptop until Sunday.
Goldman Sachs came out on top for the second year in a row in forum site Wall Street Oasis' industry report of bank working hours, averaging nearly 90 hours a week, the same as last year. It's a lot – but the infamous 100-hour weeks complained about by Goldman Sachs juniors might, luckily, be a thing of the past.
At the VP level, the base compensation is typically between $250,000 and $300,000. Regarding the variable bonus portion, on average, bonuses range from $200,000 to $400,000 at bulge bracket investment banks and elite boutiques. The all-in comp for 1st year VPs comes out to around $400,000 to $700,000.
The world's biggest banks reportedly slashed more than 60,000 jobs in 2023. It was a year in which investment banks suffered their second year in a row of declining fees amid a downturn in dealmaking and companies going public, the Financial Times (FT) reported Monday (Dec.
$374K (Median Total Pay)
The average Investment Banking Vice President base salary at J.P. Morgan is $218K per year. The average additional pay is $157K per year, which could include cash bonus, stock, commission, profit sharing or tips.
Investment banking hours are much longer than those in other jobs because of four main reasons: Huge Clients Pay Your Bank Huge Fees: When a company is paying your bank $50 million, $10 million, or even $1 million to advise on a deal, you have to do whatever it wants at any time of the day.
The average Vice President Private Banker base salary at J.P. Morgan is $202K per year. The average additional pay is $115K per year, which could include cash bonus, stock, commission, profit sharing or tips.
In investment banking, as in fund management, Sunday is a day of work. More than that, it is often the day when all the important work that couldn't get done during the week is completed.
The short answer is: no. There is no age limit that formally disqualifies you from starting a career as an investment banker. It is possible to join the field at 22, 27, 34, 38, or even 50 and above. That being said, it is true that the younger you are, the higher your chances.
Is investment banking hard to break into?
Investment banking is extremely competitive with way more applicants than available positions each year. You will often be up against students from Ivy League universities, with a high GPAs and multiple internships under their belts.
Typically, entry-level investment bankers, for instance, can expect to receive around 10-15 days of vacation per year. This can increase to 20 or more days as they gain seniority and move up the ranks.
Ways to make a lot of money in this world
Sure, anybody can make a good living being a doctor or a lawyer or an investment banker where you can make ~$200-500K per year a few years after you finish with your studies, but you hit a ceiling very quickly unless you start your own practice (aka start your own business).
Even this can be tough if you're post-30, according to the M&A headhunter we spoke to (most banks focus MBA hiring on their M&A and capital markets divisions). "You do get some first-year associates who are aged 32+, but it's very rare," he says.
Retiring at age 40 is entirely feasible if you have accumulated $5 million by that age. If the long-term future is much like the long-term past, you will be able to withdraw $200,000 the first year for living expenses and adjust that number up for inflation every year more or less forever without running out of money.
